Abby Finds Her Calling (13 page)

James clenched his jaw against a bad answer: Dat’s memory had grown dimmer, and because he hadn’t seen for himself that the wedding was canceled, it wasn’t real to him. “We’ll talk about it in a few, Dat,” he whispered against his father’s gnarled ear. “For now, we want to be quiet so the meeting will be adjourned. Time for dinner.”

“Could be Merle’s seeing things clearer than we give him credit for,” a voice came from the women’s side of the room.

The crowd went quiet. Vernon and the two preachers tried to identify who had spoken: such an utterance was highly uncommon once the verdict had been announced. “Please stand and state your meaning,” Abe Nissley insisted.

“Jah, we’ll not be having any discussion after the fact,” Paul confirmed. “It’s not right to undermine the bishop’s decision, now that we’ve voted.”

James’s temples throbbed. The Yutzys’ basement was stuffy, and a lifetime’s training in patience wasn’t making this extended meeting any easier to endure.

Finally a lone figure rose on the far side of the room. “It’s all well
and gut to put the ban on Zanna,” Adah Ropp ventured, “but she shouldn’t bear the punishment alone.”

James groaned silently. Rudy Ropp owned a large herd of Holsteins while his wife worked at the Mennonite cheese factory where they sold their milk, north of Clearwater. Some said Adah secretly favored electricity and other progressive ways because of her association with these folks—even though everyone agreed you couldn’t buy better cheese anywhere.

Bishop Gingerich cleared his throat. “And what are you suggesting, Sister Adah? You could have spoken up during our previous discussion.”

Adah clasped her hands in front of her black apron. “Rudy and I are raising two girls near the same age as Zanna, still in their rumspringa,” she said. “Plenty of parents here want to know about the fella their daughters ought to steer clear of.”

Kapps bobbed. Whispers hissed among the members on both sides.

“What’s Adah sayin’?” Merle demanded in a loud whisper. “Why’s she askin’ who—”

“Shhh!” James placed a finger on his father’s lips, wishing the bishop had stifled this nonsense. “Mamm’ll be giving you the
look
for talking out of turn.”

Zanna’s face flushed as she turned to face the women’s side. “You’d better be sure you want that answer before you ask such a question, Adah Ropp.”

The crowd sucked in its breath. Zanna still stood before the bishop and the preachers, and while she had appeared contrite during her confession, the headstrong young woman James knew so well had just met Adah’s challenge with one of her own: another unheard-of disruption of order.

And why would that be?

James’s stomach clenched again as he considered the possibilities. It was no secret that the two Ropp sons had scattered—left Cedar Creek rather than join the church or go into their dat’s dairy
operation. His nerves jangled. Even though he secretly wanted to confront the man who’d shamed his fiancée, a part of him didn’t want to know which fellow Zanna had fallen for. After he’d waited all these years to find the right wife, losing her to a moment of misplaced passion made him feel… lacking, even though the situation was clearly wrong.

“What are you saying, Zanna?” Adah replied tightly. “It’s not proper for you to protect that fella from your shame. And it’s not right to raise a child without its father.”

“Tell that to Jonny, then!” Zanna blurted out. As gasps and murmurs rose among the members, Zanna clapped a hand over her mouth and ran from the crowded room, a retching sound drifting back through the door before it could close.

Jonny Ropp, was it? What did she see in that defiant, no-account—

James crossed his arms hard, feeling trapped on that runaway roller coaster again. He wanted to chase after Zanna and demand the truth. He wanted to hitch Jonny Ropp to a carriage and make him haul the weight of this shame and humiliation.

Not that Jonny would care about what he’d done to Zanna, or to the relationship James had cherished with her. Last he’d heard, the younger Ropp boy had jumped the fence and never looked back. No one seemed to know where he was or what he was doing—

But Zanna knows. And she doesn’t want to tell anyone else. Why isn’t she hauling him into this ring of fire—making him own up to that one time he took advantage of—that one time she let him—

Too agitated to sit any longer, James stood up. At the same time, Abby Lambright rose from her tightly packed row of women to excuse herself, probably to go help her little sister. Adah, too, pushed sideways between female knees and the next bench, as though
she
intended to be the first to reach Zanna.

“We’ll not be going anywhere until this meeting is finished and we’ve blessed the meal we’re about to share,” Vernon announced firmly. “Sit down. All of you.”

With a sigh, James obeyed. Abby and Adah eased back into their places.

“We’ll adjourn with no further discussion here—or any gossip about this situation once we leave,” the bishop added sternly. “It’s unfortunate, the way we’ve learned more about Suzanna’s situation. But because Jonny’s not joined the church, we have no means of persuading him to come forward unless he confesses of his own free will.”

Vernon looked at the women and then at the men. “So we’re leaving this matter to the Lord and we’ll wait and watch for His guidance. As the Good Book says, we are to be still and know that He is God. Are we in accord about this?”

Heads nodded. “Ayes” were murmured.

James closed his eyes. His temples throbbed. The airless basement was closing in on him, and he knew he couldn’t sit there much longer.

“So be it, then.”

As Vernon called for a moment of silent thanks for the common meal they were about to share, James felt anything but hungry. Had Zanna taken off again? Now that the rest of her secret was out, would she go elsewhere and find a way to support herself and her baby? She’d threatened to do that last night, and it wouldn’t surprise him.

Or was she on her way back to Jonny?

Abby rushed out the basement door and broke free from the crowd of chatting women. Across the Yutzys’ yard she raced, gazing beyond the pens of chickens and ducks, and then past the enclosures filled with the young deer that Ezra raised for northern lodges, to stock their forests for hunters. How had Zanna disappeared so quickly when she was sick to her stomach? It wasn’t until Abby hurried past the large building that housed Ezra Yutzy’s wooden pallet business that she heard muffled weeping.

“Oh, Zanna!” she murmured as she wrapped her arms around
the most forlorn figure she’d ever seen. “You might be under the ban, but you’ll never be alone. The worst is behind you now.”

Abby tucked her little sister’s head against her shoulder and swayed slowly, rocking her in that ageless, instinctive rhythm, the same way she’d soothed this little soul since the day she was born. She’d been the one to comfort Sam and Barbara’s little ones, too—Aunt Abby had always loved holding these children close as their breathing fell into rhythm with hers. Zanna’s arms encircled her shoulders and for several moments she sobbed out her frustration and pain… the weight of confessing her activities as well as the name they’d all been waiting to hear.

Jonny Ropp. You had to pick the most unlikely candidate for a dat on the planet.

But wasn’t it Zanna’s way to leap at an enticing challenge before she considered the consequences? Abby understood Jonny’s allure. Last she’d heard, the youngest and best-looking of the Ropp family had taken to driving fast cars and reveling in all the English ways he’d been denied as a child. A dairy farm’s success revolved around a milking schedule that made the daily routine even more restrictive than most Amish observed, and Abby hadn’t been surprised when Jonny left Cedar Creek on his sixteenth birthday without a backward glance.

Some said he’d gotten such a wayward streak while helping Adah at the cheese factory store, where English tourists and the Mennonite owners put worldly ideas in his head. He’d toed the mark at home to avoid Rudy’s discipline, but he was gone like a shot first chance he got. His brother, Gideon, left soon after that.

But what did all that matter? Right now—even though it went against the strictest sense of shunning—Abby held a young mother-to-be who felt more alone and terrified than she could admit. Zanna was under the ban, so she was to eat at a separate table at home and would remain in social quarantine until her six weeks’ punishment had passed. For this energetic, sociable young woman, the members’
imposing such seclusion would be akin to plucking a butterfly’s wings or silencing a robin’s song. Sam had said he’d make their little sister suffer for her sin, and now that they knew who’d led Zanna down the path to perdition, he would surely see that she felt the full brunt of her shunning.

Abby sighed, still rocking Zanna’s shuddering form. “You’re sure Jonny Ropp’s the father?” she murmured. “I’m not doubting you or putting judgment on Jonny’s head, understand. Just hoping you didn’t blurt out his name to spite Adah for raising that question.”

“Is it any wonder he left home? And Gideon, as well?” Zanna swiped at her eyes. “Can you imagine how that woman’s tongue shredded her kids’ confidence? And Rudy spanked them with his belt, out in the barn!”

Abby cringed. While good parents made a point of disciplining their children, Rudy Ropp’s punishment seemed more heavy-handed than what most dats would do. She thought back to the Members’ Meeting, when Adah Ropp had spoken out of turn. It wasn’t so much that Jonny’s mamm was hateful. She was just more insistent on being heard than was common among Plain women. “Some would say Adah spared the rod… let her younger boy pick up on those Mennonites’ progressive ideas,” Abby remarked quietly. “We never see our parents in the same light others do. But I believe it’s a gut thing, the way you turned loose of Jonny’s name.”

“How can you believe that, Abby?” Zanna raised her tear-streaked face, looking wretched. “He’s no more inclined to act like a dat than he is to join the church! I—I haven’t even told him about the baby, knowing he’d rather run the roads with his taxi service, chattering on his cell phone, than settle down with a wife and child. Not that Mamm or Sam would let me marry him.”

Abby absorbed as much of this as she could while watching the emotions shift on Zanna’s pale face. Before long, Adah or Barbara or Mamm would find them here, and this heartsick young girl would clam up again. “So he drives, does he? For the Amish?”

“Jah, or whoever will hire him.” She swiped at her eyes, smiling in spite of her pain. “He’s on call with a couple of retirement complexes, taking folks to doctor appointments. Does a gut business carrying Plain folks to weddings and funerals at a distance, too. Makes enough that he’s bought a used stretch limo for those trips.”

Abby smiled. Now that Zanna was talking about Jonny, her sister had perked up and was in a frame of mind to move forward, to deal with her situation—and it seemed a fine time to glean as much information as she could. “So… what on earth might a stretch limo be?”

Zanna’s blue eyes sparkled in spite of their red rims. “Oh, Abby, it’s the loooooongest car you ever saw! The front and back ends are joined together by a stretched-out middle section that holds a lot more folks, in wider seats. Mighty fancy inside. Makes you feel like royalty, riding in it!”

And how would you know what royalty feels like?
Abby heard footsteps, and she wanted to avoid any more confrontations. “Let’s get you home,” she suggested. “You won’t be eating with us today, and I bet you’re half starved—”

“Oh, Abby, I’m so hungry, I could eat my fingers!”

“—but we’ve got to figure a way… maybe Matt could drive us.” They rounded the far corner of Ezra’s pallet factory and saw the long tables where folks were sitting down to the sandwiches and pies the women had set out. “There, I see him.”

“Jah, but he’s sitting right next to James.”

Abby closed her eyes against a welling up of emotions so mixed she wasn’t sure what to make of them. Zanna would have to speak to James sooner or later—just as she’d have to face up to Adah Ropp and Jonny. It was their brother, Sam, who rose from his seat, however. His stride was long, as though he intended to prevent Zanna from approaching those who had just banned her.

“There’ll be no more skulking about, missy!” he declared in a low voice. “Now that your carryings-on with the Ropp boy are common
knowledge, everyone in Cedar Creek will be watching to see that you make gut on your promise to repent.”

“Sam, she’s feeling puny and I’m taking her home,” Abby insisted quietly. “We wanted to see if Matt could drive us.”

“And what’s wrong with walking? Zanna had no trouble getting herself out of the house before the wedding, now, did she?” In the midday sun, their older brother’s face looked ruddy, more etched around the eyes and where his mouth curved downward toward his beard.

When Zanna drew in a breath to protest, Abby squeezed her arm in warning. There was no point in challenging Sam’s perfectly valid statement, or in getting him peeved at
her
. “Jah, there’s that,” Abby murmured. Never mind that Indian summer had set in and the day was unseasonably warm, or that the two-and-a-half-mile walk home might make their younger sister woozy or dehydrated. “We’ll go along, then. Enjoy your dinner, Sam.”

Zanna’s wretched expression nearly made Abby cry. One of the pies Barbara had brought was peach, Zanna’s favorite, and she could use a piece of that sweet goodness herself after the morning they’d all endured. Sam returned to his seat, and there was nothing to do but head on home—or risk having Adah make another spectacle.

“All right, then,” Abby murmured. For appearances’ sake she stepped farther away, because the rules of shunning required her not to be in close contact with her sister. “We’ll start home, and if you need to sit down, just say so. We’ll find a hydrant for a cool drink, and plenty of folks between here and home would be happy to let us pick an apple from their trees.”

Down the gravel driveway they walked, with Abby slowing her pace to match her sister’s. The sun beat down on the backs of their necks, and the weed heads in the lane’s center strip of green brushed their skirts. At the county road they turned left, and once they were walking on the blacktop, the waves of heat felt more intense.